Taught by the Blade
by disciple65
Summary: Cin Drallig has been teaching Jedi swordcraft for years, but this lesson with his own apprentice, Serra Keto, will be about more than just swordplay.   A one-shot for now, but I will continue this if it gets a good response.
1. Chapter 1

"Come now, Serra," Jedi Mattlemaster Cin Drallig chastised his favorite apprentice as his saber edged past her defenses, "If you are going to experiment with Ataru, you should remember not to leave yourself so open to attack. Just because you are busy jumping around doesn't mean that an opponent will allow you to land _before running _you through."

"I know, Master, I know," Drallig's training blade edged closer to Serra's side as she struggled to push aside the counterattack her master had been able to slip into her 'blind spot'.

"Then show me. You know how to run," The white haired Master disengaged his lightsaber and hopped backwards out of his apprentice's range, "you know how to jump," she slashed out with one blade, "you know how to slash," the strike whisked inches shy of Drallig's face, and he leveled a counter-attack towards her left flank. His blade suddenly stopped, mere inches away from her side, held back by her second blade. Drallig smiled and retreated again, making full use of the Temple's weapons room's vast size.

"It seems you have finally learned to block, as well." Cin leveled a flurry of strikes towards her at every angle. Serra instantly shifted away from the acrobatic dodges and leaps of the Ataru stance and fell into a Niman defensive stance. "You seem to have a grasp of the basics. Now get creative. A real enemy won't wait around for you to make up your mind."

"If you say so, Master." Serra caught her Master's last strike- a powerful overhead slash- on both of her blades and pushed them into the air. As the older Jedi angled his saber to prevent one of the sweeping strikes Serra had become so fond of, he felt a pound on his chest. The pound felt about like a size 9 ½ combat boot being propelled forward by a teenager with something to prove. Instead of falling flat on the floor like any other being would have, the old swordsman deactivated his saber and roller backwards with the impact, using the momentum to regain his footing. He felt a whisper in the Force as he prepared to right himself from the crouch, and he ducked backwards just in time to see a green blade split his vision in two as it zipped over his head.

"Clever, very clever." Cin righted himself in a defensive posture and looked forward, expecting to see his apprentice charging him in a follow up attack. Instead, an empty space greeted him, and only his peripheral vision saved him from taking a very embarrassing strike to the head from Serra's training blade as she attacked from the side. "Throwing one saber as a distraction, and moving to a blind spot to strike with the second. Unorthodox, effective, and decisive. We might make a Jedi Knight out of you yet."

The old master smiled at the young girl, no, not girl: woman- she had not been a girl for some time now- and shrugged her blade away from his. She reached out a hand to where her first blade had landed and deactivated against the wall. Cin, however, reached out with the Force to counter this. Using his own strength, he pulled the saber to his off hand and activated it. She almost sneered at the thought of losing her blade, even for just a moment. "You want it back?"

"That would be accurate, Master." She was obviously working hard to control her frustration with herself and her teacher.

"Then come get it." Cin Drallig settled into a Jai'Kar opening stance, blades to the side and pointed skyward, and angled his body to present as small a target as possible for his apprentice. Serra, ever stubborn, brought her blade into an overhead grip, blade pointed towards her master. She struck, and Cin countered. The two dance around in a whirl of light, exchanging several hundred slashes per minutes. "A Soresu opening stance with the aggression of Djem So? Foolish, if you ask my opinion."

"All due respect master, you did tell me to be creative in my tactics."

"That I did," Drallig parried another series of slashes with the two blades, "but you've made a fatal error: you expect the defensive tendencies of Soresu to compensate for Djem So's aggressive nature, but you are not at peace. You are trying to douse a fire by smothering it with a oil soaked blanket, occupying your attention too much on balancing the skills rather than the fight at hand. Focus on the here and now." Drallig drove the point home- literally- as he caught Serra's blade on his blades as she had done to him only minutes earlier. Instead of sweeping the blades upwards, however, he pushed them to the side and brought his knee into her side.

"Unf!" Serra rolled to the side with considerably less grace than her master had, yet she regained her footing exceptionally quickly, and just in time to lock blades with her master once more.

"I might try a different tact if I were you."

"What haven't I tried, then? I've used every form from Shii-Choo to Shien and I can't get through!" Serra's voice was cold, but not angry. She was merely immensely frustrated, but she was keeping it in check well enough for one who had every right to be fuming mad with the results of the duel thus far. Suddenly, though, realization dawned on her face. "Master?"

"Yes, Serra?"

"Might I please have my lightsaber back?"

"I thought you'd never figure it out." Both duelists disengaged from combat and the master deactivated the second blade and tossed it across the room to the student. "Diplomacy is often preferable to destruction. This is especially true in a mismatched fight, something which you may eventually find yourself in.  
"Until then, if you want to try out new techniques, it is preferable to test them on a combat droid before putting them into play in the real world."

"Yes, Master. I understand."

"Good, now maybe you would like to show me that saber throw. Your technique seemed a little sloppy."

"Sloppy, Master?"

"Yes, sloppy. If I hadn't moved, you would have hit me between the eyes. Unacceptable."

Author's Note: These characters get much too little love. I might start a little series around these two eventually, but for now, this will remain a one-shot homage to two of my favorite boss characters from the Episode III game. Face it, they are bad ass.


	2. Chapter 2

"There is no doubt that Serra will be ready for the Trials soon, but she does need more practical experience before we can truly consider this," Master Drallig's voice took on a regretful tone, "I'm nothing but willing to instruct young Jedi in the art of the blade, but it does no good if I can't teach my own apprentice how to fulfill a Jedi's duties in the galaxy."

"No substitute for experience, there is." Master Yoda looked over to the chair where his fellow Jedi sat, absently staring out of the window into Coruscant's skyline. "A solution to this problem, find will I."

"Thank you, Master Yoda. I know that she understands my situation, but her impatience won't be brought under control if she never gets out of the Temple. Honestly, she's had little firsthand exposure to the real stresses of anything other than theory and lessons." Cin had always been a talkative man, but usually he knew when to simply shut up. Immediately, he felt that he had acted a fool, telling the wizened green Jedi what he, almost certainly, already knew about.

"Fret not, young Drallig. Understand your concern, I do. Suffered from the same problem, several of my past apprentices have. In fact, know of a suitable mission for you and your apprentice I might."

Cin nodded. Yoda was the final authority on every official Jedi envoy, and even some unofficial visits even required his approval. He could very well assign anyone to whatever mission he saw fit, and that included assigning another Jedi to take over his sword lessons with the padawans for as long as the mission should last.

"Inform you when more information I have, I will. Prepare yourself and your apprentice to leave soon, I would." The old master stood up from his low, padded chair in the council chamber and hobbled out of the room. Cin followed behind, saying his goodbyes to Yoda at the turbolifts as he stepped in and keyed his comlink to Serra's channel.

-J-

Serra walked into the Lake Level's changing room sopping wet, but exceedingly relaxed. Five kilometers of lap swimming in the artificial lake had a tendency to relax almost anyone. Stress flowed into her during the day, and when she couldn't work it out otherwise, swimming until she was slightly winded always relaxed her. The young Jedi found the locker where she had stored a dry tunic and opened the small door. She stripped off the soaked clothes that she had swam in and proceeded to dry her body off, studiously ignoring her comlink's beeping as it let her know that she a message or two. Only once she was fully dried and clothed again did she pick up the annoying little device. There was only one message, and it was from Master Drallig. Wrapping the towel around her head with the Force, '_Master Cin would kill me if he saw me doing this_,' she used her free hands to check the several missed voice recordings and one text-only message from her Master.

Serra's eyes went wide and she almost dropped the comlink when she read the message. Then she sprinted for the turbolift. She nearly bowled over a group of young padawans at the door and apologizing profusely to a group of older Jedi in her mad dash past them in the hallway. Once she reached the turbolift she frantically pushed the buttons on the panel until the doors finally closed and took her up to the level her room was on.

Master Cin's message had only been two lines. '_Master Yoda has a mission for us. Get your gear ready to go and I'll meet you in the central hanger in an hour.' _Serra Keto, a Jedi who hadn't left the Temple on a mission in nearly a year and a half, didn't have to be told twice. Cabin fever was enough to make anywhere more interesting than the Temple.

-J-

The ship wasn't exactly big, but it was fast and owned by the Temple. Cin wasn't particularly pick about the mode of transportation, but only so long as he didn't have to pilot it himself. His hands were made for a blade, not a control yoke. Stepping off of the yacht and back into the hangar, the Jedi Master breathed a deep sigh, wondering what on earth was keeping his apprentice. She jumped at any chance to go offworld, or even out of the Temple for as long as she could manage. He just couldn't imagine Serra normally taking this much time to go anywhere.

"Master!" the yell from across the hangar brought him out of his musings as he saw his apprentice practically sprinting towards him. He crossed his arms and kept his gaze fixed on Sera as she skidded to a stop in from of him. "I'm sorry to keep you waiting so long, I was swimming on the Lake Level when your message came in."

"And here I thought that you just wanted to stay in the Temple for a little while longer."

"Please, Master," Serra panted out as her short but still wet dark hair dripped water onto the hangar floor, "this doesn't seem like the time for cruel jokes."

"It would only be cruel if I acted on it."

"All due respect, Master, but can you just tell me where we are going?"

"To the Mid-Rim," Cin turned and stepped halfway into the ship, "Once the other member of our delegation arrives, that is. Where he is, in fact is another question altogether."

"Other member?"

"Yes, and Force knows where he is or why he's taking so long."

"Show some faith, Master Drallig," A new voice sounded from behind the pair of Jedi. They turned to see a younger Jedi Knight crossing the through the hanger. He weaved around the few technicians and pilots in his way despite the black cloth tied around his eyes.

"Gale Avaarn," he began as he dropped the rucksack previously slung over his shoulder to the ground before bowing his head slightly, "at your service. I apologize for my… lack of punctuality, but Master Fisto wished for me to ask a favor of my old master before I left."

"Very well. You are here now, so we can be on our way. This is my apprentice, Serra, by the way." Avaarn nodded to Serra in a familiar way, vaguely recognizing her from a few classes that he had shared with her in training.

"Nice to meet you, Serra."

"Likewise, but we might want to get aboard the ship before Master Drallig decides that he wants to improve his piloting skills." In fact, Cin Drallig's piloting skills were legendary among the Jedi order. Ever with the aid of the Force, one of the Order's greatest swordsmen was by far its worst pilot. It was almost an unspoken amendment to the Jedi Code that Master Drallig was to never be allowed near the control stick of any vehicle unless there were no other alternative. Any passive observer would have thought that a murder was taking place inside the cockpit. Soon enough, and only after more pushing, shoving, and shouts of 'by the Force!' than would normally be seen as appropriate for Jedi, the two younger Jedi had taken their places at the pilot and copilot's seats and practically exiled the older Master from the cockpit of the small, fast yacht. Within the next ten minutes, the ship was airborne and exiting Coruscant's gravity well. For a moment, Serra marveled as the stars stretch out in front of the ship. Cin, meanwhile, mediated in the small crew longue and Gale merely checked through the instruments once more.

-J-

"So, Master, you haven't said where exactly we're going." Serra and Gale had come back to the longue once the ship's computer had confirmed the automated sequence of hyperspace jumps that would take up the majority of the next forty-two hours aboard the yacht.

"Tesal," he said without opening his eyes or otherwise disturbing his meditative stance, "It's a planet on the outer edge of the Mid Rim. It's in Republic space, but just barely."

"I've been there once before on a layover stop," Avaarn chipped in, "The only legitimate claims there are the Echani, and only the stupid or the powerful make a habit of crossing them."

"Then you know that the mining interests there are what really matter, then." Cin asked of the Knight, who nodded slightly in affirmation. Noticing the 'I'm completely lost' look on Serra's face, Cin decided to give some clues about the planet before they got there.

"It's a mining colony that had the good fortune of uncovering a phrikite vein two years ago. Since then, independent mining operations have moved in, and the Echani government has had to make some drastic changes in their colonial security policy to keep the planet from turning into another Nar Shaddaa." Gale saw the grim recognition in Serra's eyes as her mentor explained this to her. Phrikite was one of the rarest metals in the galaxy, and one of the toughest. Refined phrik was nearly indestructible, and only found in precious few, small deposits across the galaxy. Most criminals would think it well worth killing for to be able to produce weapons and armor that could block even a lightsaber blade.

"So what exactly is our mission?" She asked without missing a beat.

"Actually, Gale was given a more extensive briefing than myself, as it was originally just his mission," At this point, the Jedi Master unfolded himself from his meditative position to rest his feet on the floor and his elbows on the table, "Avaarn, if you would be so kind as to fill us in?"

""Gladly," Gale took a seat at the circular table and began to practically recite the briefing Master Yoda had given him, "Late last night, the Temple receive a request from the Caltis Na'Chay, the Echani Senate representative, asking for Jedi intervention in a potential situation on Tesal. Their minig claims are being endlessly challenged, and not in court. In fact, things have been getting violent recently, and the Echani don't feel like they can take any action without it devolving into an armed conflict. They can't just pull out, as they've a population of several million on Tesal, and they can't just give up mining rights either. To do so would undermine their position as a legitimate government."

"So they need us to broker a truce." Serra interjected.

"On the contrary," Gale continued, "They would prefer a truce. The Echani government's 'foreign policy' allows them to destroy any perceived threats to governmental institutions with military force. The Planetary Defense Garrison on Teasl would be more than enough to institute martial law, but they don't want a bloodbath or bad press on their hands. That, and Governor Lsu doesn't want to show all his cards before he has to. The size of their military presence is far from limited to the uniforms on the streets, but most of the offworld operations don't know that."

-J-

Author's Note: Ohh, politics. Anyway, enjoy!


End file.
